Re: Character-escape (MSSCHAR) in HTML?

There are some of optional features in SGML that are not widely implemented,
or that may cause problems if implemented.

I'm nervous about MSSCHAR for a number of reasons.  The behaviour of
an entity ending in MSSCHAR seems to me to be undefined, for example.

At the IETF meetings in Toront, the phrase `ISO syndrome' was bandied
about for standards ratified before they are implemented; if it was done
again, SGML would be different.

I'm afraid I'd say don't use MSSCHAR.

You can do most of what you want with SDATA entities anyway, e.g. instead
of \<P> you can write &lt;P>.  Although this looks uglier at first sight,
editors (e.g. our HoTMetaL!) can display this as <P>.

Also, I have often seen <\P> from PC users.  This is currently an error;
your proposal would make it legal -- the < is not followed by a NAMECHAR,
so it would be a literal < followd by an escaped P followed by a >.

Lee

-- 
Liam Quin, Manager of Contracting, SoftQuad Inc +1 416 239 4801 lee@sq.com
HexSweeper NeWS game;OPEN LOOK+XView+mf-fonts FAQs;lq-text unix text retrieval
SoftQuad HoTMetaL: ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu:Web/html/hotmetal, and also doc.ic.ac.uk:
packages/WWW/ncsa/..., gatekeeper.dec.com:net/infosys/Mosaic/contrib/SoftQuad/

Received on Friday, 9 September 1994 20:25:47 UTC